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We hope everyone had a great holiday weekend (if you’re located in the US & A) and now that we’re done with the festivities we’ve got a meaty update for you this week. Lots of new stock from our buddies over at Hydra Head (thanks for the rad robot sketch guys!) including Godflesh + Jesu items abound, along with Cave In and other various goodies. HH-related is the long awaited vinyl issuing of the collaborative Harkonen / These Arms Are Snakes split, finally available as a deluxe 12″ courtesy of Mind Over Matter.

Italian label FOAD sent us some choice vinyl you’ll see below and the new Ancient Sky 12″ and tape are now available in the online shop. Robo’s responsible for the cassette edition, limited to 150 copies with a full color J-card and black shell with yellow imprinting. We’re stoked to work with those guys again for the tape release of the seriously killer new album Mosaic!

Worth re-highlighting is the nice stack of items we brought into the Robotic Empire Online Store last month from Thrill Jockey, A389, Top Shelf, and Gilead. We’ve got that list below for you to glance through again.

Our second tribute to Nirvana, titled Whatever Nevermind, is out today. This album sees Boris, Cave In, Circa Survive, Kylesa, La Dispute, Nothing, Pygmy Lush, Thou, Torche, Touche Amore, White Reaper, Wrong and Young Widows running the classic Nevermind album through their diverse creative filters, and we couldn’t be happier with the results.

The vinyl is released today to coincide with Record Store Day 2015, but for all those who weren’t able or close enough to a participating store to attend, we have a mailorder-edition of this release available now in our Online Store:

In addition to the tribute album, we’ve stocked as many of the contributing bands’ (and related outfits) available releases that we were able to get copies of. Along with many other great new titles and restocks, over a hundred items have been added to our Online Store. Here is the full list:

We are extremely stoked to announce our second tribute to Nirvana, this time with their breakout Nevermind album being covered in full by a diverse range of bands. The new tribute LP, titled Whatever Nevermind, is being released April 18th in conjunction with Record Store Day 2015, and sees diverse contributions from Boris, Cave In, Circa Survive, Kylesa, La Dispute, Nothing, Pygmy Lush, Thou, Torche, Touche Amore, White Reaper, Wrong and Young Widows.

The lineup assembled for Whatever Nevermind has some of our favorite active bands running Nirvana’s classics through their own creative filters. What they’ve come up with is a great merging of individual style with a nod to the influence of ‘grunge’.

Nirvana clearly doesn’t need further accolade; they’ve been inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, are known by most music fans on the planet, and are one of the all-time greats. That being said, Nirvana helped shape our tastes and of countless musicians we respect, and to pay even a slight homage to them in return is a privilege. Working with the amazing range of talents involved here, including several return contributors from the first tribute LP, is an absolute honor, and we can’t wait for people to hear the results.

Circa Survive‘s take on ‘Drain You’ premieres today via Alternative Press and can be heard here:

On their method of tackling the project, Brendan from Circa Survive says:

“There are different ways to approach covering a band. For us, doing a Nirvana song takes us back to a very raw place that we were in when we were young and just falling in love with music. We didn’t want to say ‘here’s what this song would’ve sounded like if Circa wrote it’. It was way more fun for us to live in their energy and pay homage to their influence by just rocking the shit out of it and keeping it raw.”

The vinyl edition of Whatever Nevermind is being released as a 12″ + bonus 7″ combined, with artwork inspired by and mutated from the original album, and includes a high-quality digital download. Record Store Day 2015 will see an exclusive color-vinyl edition accompanied by a large poster, akin to the 2014 RSD release of In Utero: In Tribute.

The tribute will also be available April 18th to download/stream from all digital outlets, with digital pre-orders now available from iTunes including immediate availability of Circa Survive‘s cover of ‘Drain You':

Last year’s In Utero: In Tribute vinyl sold out on release day, the digital version received a spotlight on the iTunes storefront and received coverage across high-profile media including Alternative Press, SPIN and The Guardian.

As Robotic Empire’s 100th release, “In Utero: In Tribute” concluded an oft-rumored, elusive 7-year project. Just one year later, the catalog number for followup homage “Whatever Nevermind” appropriately lands at Robo 116, as the label celebrates its 16th year of existence with this release. We couldn’t be more proud and excited to present this to you!

We are thrilled to announce the availability of CAVE IN‘s elusive mid-period album The Sacrifice Poles, which Robodog Records originally released on CD back in 2001. Comprised entirely of instrumental 4-track recordings from 1998-2000, The Sacrifice Poles sees CAVE IN heavily experimenting during writing blocks between Until Your Heart Stops and Jupiter. Largely unlike either release due to the creative process, the album remains unmistakably “Cave In” and is a surprising window into one of rock music’s most amazing transitions.

Aside from “Brain Candle Waltz”, all material has stayed exclusive to this release and we are thrilled to finally present it on vinyl, over 13 years later. Aaron Turner’s stark original artwork and layout has been meticulously re-created from archived artist proofs, for a 5-color silkscreened LP jacket printed by brethren at Broken Press.

All audio for both vinyl and digital formats has been separately remastered by James Plotkin in 2014 for a warmer, fuller sound. Pressed in an edition of 500 copies, 300 were made on translucent blue vinyl and 200 on black vinyl. All LP copies include a high quality digital download.

This officially drops on May 27th but we’re too damn stoked and have put up our mailorder copies now! iTunes and other digital services will have this on the 27th as well.

Once track from each side of the vinyl are also available to preview via Soundcloud:

Beyond that awesome release, we have acquired a gnarly plethora of new vinyl and cassettes for the Robotic Empire – Online Store, including a bunch of rad tunes from former Robo alumni.

On the new release tip we’ve got new stuff from THE BODY, CULT LEADER (3/4ths of powerhouse GAZA), DECADES/FAILURES (Adam from STOP IT!!‘s excellent dark solo material), DOC‘s killer 12″ (with MAGRUDERGRIND drummer Chris Moore), DOOMRIDERS bringing the thunder, two MOUNTAINS LPs, a new self-released NADJA 7″ seeing them in a new aggressive light, plenty of THOU vinyl as their prolific roar rolls on, TOUCHE AMORE‘s new one for all the sad souls and way more.

As for restocks, it’s much of the same plus the two latest long players from CONVERGE, GRAILS self-released reissues of their two first LPs (initially released by Robo/Neurot), HELMS ALEE‘s rare old debut 1-sided 12″ (amazing we got more of these), LITURGY‘s polarizing Aesthetica 2LP, an expanded TRAP THEM 12″ and a trifecta of double-LPs from YEAR OF NO LIGHT.